State v. Merritt
| Citation | 72 S.E.2d 754,236 N.C. 363 |
| Decision Date | 29 October 1952 |
| Docket Number | No. 291,291 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of North Carolina |
| Parties | STATE, v. MERRITT. |
Harry McMullan, Atty. Gen., and Ralph Moody, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Marvin V. Horton, Jr., Farmville, for the defendant, appellant.
The prosecuting witness is a child, who at the time of her alleged ravishment was 4 years, 10 months and 5 days of age. She lived with her mother and other relatives in a downstairs apartment at a rooming house. The defendant, aged 28, had living quarters in an upstairs room at the same house. The gist of the testimony of the prosecutrix is that the defendant picked her up from her seat on the porch and with his hand over her mouth carried her upstairs to his room and there effected the ravishment as charged. When she came back downstairs, her relatives and other roomers, seeing the physical signs and marks of her ravishment and acting upon information given by her, went upstairs and found the defendant in his room lying across the bed. Officers were called. In the ensuing investigation, and also on later occasions, the prosecutrix identified the defendant as being the one who raped her. Her testimony was strongly corroborated by testimony of the officers and others respecting the condition of the bed and of defendnt's wearing apparel, some of which was found in the stove.
The defendant, on the other hand, firmly and unequivocally denied any and all connection with the alleged crime and offered substantial evidence tending to refute the incriminating testimony and circumstances relied on by the State. The trial developed into a controverted issue of fact for the jury on sharply conflicting evidence. It would serve no useful purpose to relate the details of the sordid story which unfolded below.
The defendant insists that the trial court erred in permitting the prosecutrix to testify as a witness in the case. Her competency to testify was a matter resting in the sound discretion of the trial judge. State v. Gibson, 221 N.C. 252, 20 S.E.2d 51; State v. Jackson, 211 N.C. 202, 189 S.E. 510, and cases there cited. See also Wigmore on Evidence, Third Edition, Vol. II, Sections 505, 506, 507, 508 and 509. The rule is succinctly stated by Reade, J., in State v. Edwards, 79 N.C. 648, at page 650: ...
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State v. Wetmore, 47
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